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Just like yesterday morning, there is a Yamaha in front of everyone at Jerez, but this time it is that of the factory team and the rider is not Loris Baz but Michael Van der Mark. The Dutchman, in his last season with the R1 before embracing the BMW project, fired in a time of 1:39.639, two tenths faster than the first of his pursuers, the world champion Jonathan Rea. The Kawasaki rider also proved fast today after yesterday he had preferred to work almost exclusively on race pace.
Third position went to Loris Baz who is showing really good form this weekend, maybe in view of a promotion into the factory team in place of VdM. Baz lap just a fraction away from the Dutchman and even less from the time of Johnny Rea.
Fourth quickest time for the other top R1: that of Toprak Razgatlioglu who today in race 1 will try to take the win just like he did in the debut race at Phillip Island almost 5 months ago. The Turkish rider was ahead of Scott Redding, the best Ducati on the track, almost half a second behind Van der Mark and sandwiched between the Yamahas as Federico Caricasulo ranked 6th with the GRT team R1.
Seventh the leader of the world standings Alex Lowes, with Sykes, Haslam and Rinaldi wrapping up the top 10. Davies and Bautista, 11th and 12th are the last riders to finish within one second of Van der Mark, behind them Laverty was at +1.368 seconds while Melandri, in 14th position, is a second and a half adrift. 15th was American Garret Gerloff.
